‘SNL’ Star Sarah Sherman Cares More Than You Think

“I’m such a psychotic perfectionist.”

This is how Sarah Sherman begins a story about her proudest recent moment on Saturday Night Live. Usually, it takes her several agonizing rounds of rewrites to nail a Weekend Update character. But for one episode this season, at midnight on a Friday—that is, a single day before air—Sherman was asked to come up with something without any time for fuss. She sounds happy about the finished product, in which she riffed on the Victoria’s Secret fashion show, but happier that she produced it at all: “We just had to throw something together and trust that it was good enough.”

Sherman first brought her surrealist, gross-out brand of humor to SNL back in 2021. But while her comedy seems wildly spontaneous, it’s always been exceedingly fine-tuned. And as MVP cast members have departed and fellow newbies have come and gone, stars like Sherman have been left to play an increasingly pivotal role in the show’s success. These days, Sherman is still weird—but suddenly, she’s infusing that eccentric energy into portrayals of Matt Gaetz and Nancy Grace. This season especially, the Long Island native has emerged as an unlikely SNL utility player.

a parody called “The White Potus.” Her few seconds of screen time made light of Wood’s Manchester accent and her teeth: “Fluoride? What’s that?” Sherman’s character asks. Wood responded by calling out the sketch on Instagram. “I did find the SNL thing mean and unfunny,” she wrote. “Yes, take the piss for sure—that’s what the show is about—but there must be a cleverer, more nuanced, less cheap way?”

Sherman sent Wood flowers, which Wood warmly accepted on Instagram. But until now, she hadn’t publicly commented on the incident. During my wide-ranging conversation with Sherman over Zoom, a few days out from the 50th season’s penultimate episode, I ask how she’s reflecting on the whole Aimee Lou Wood saga. “I was excited to play her because she’s so iconic, her character is so iconic, and I fucking obviously never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings,” Sherman tells me. “Never in a million years did I get into comedy to make anyone upset. I feel terrible that anyone would feel bad.”

What’s clear as we discuss Sherman’s standout work both before and since is that the incident fits rather neatly into her SNL growth arc. Sherman describes herself to me as someone vying to “stay vigilant” in a job that requires striking a careful satirical balance. When she started on SNL, she didn’t think she would be creating the kinds of characters in which that would need to be top of mind. But now it is—and Sherman is game to figure it out.

Vanity Fair: You play many more real people on the show than you used to—so to me, the situation with Aimee Lou Wood parallels your evolution on SNL. Is upsetting people, as you put it, something you have to consider more now?

Sarah Sherman: Totally. The show is in constant dialogue with culture as it’s happening, and it happens really fast. [Long pause] You have to be vigilant, you know what I mean? There are a lot of things out of your control. You’re playing a lot of different parts, you’re doing a lot of different roles that you’re not in control of. A lot of the process of the show has been, to me—how am I answering this? [Pause] Staying vigilant but also being a part of the show—that is your job.

Is it something you’ve spoken with others about? How are you learning that?

Yes, a billion percent. Being in conversation with everything popular culture, there’s such a danger there. Sometimes you just don’t realize how it comes across, but you’re put in a position to be engaging with it all the time, because you are a part of a show that’s constantly interacting with culture and popular politics and popular whatever. As I get thrown more and more into the show, it’s just this other thing that I have to learn about.

We’re talking on a Thursday before a new episode on Saturday. Where are you personally at right now?

Writing night was Tuesday night, so I stayed up till 6 a.m. writing. Yesterday was table read. Then you get to work at 1 p.m., and then you probably get home at 11 or so. At the end of the season my body shuts down. It’s like, “Help.”

Are you used to that, four seasons in?

I am used to it, from being in stand-up too. I am just a nighttime person. This is going to sound so lame, but I got an Oura ring, and it told me, “You are only supposed to be awake at night. You’re not a morning person.” I’m like, “That’s good!”

I wish I had something telling me that.

Don’t get it, because it’s going to make you a paranoid person like me. I’m always like, “Why is my heart rate up?”

You called last season the busiest you’ve had so far. How does this one stack up?

I feel grateful, because I feel like every season has gotten more and more busy. Last season I was being used as a straight man a lot, which has increased more this season, which is really fun because you feel like writers have trusted you to deliver a joke concept. Even though the wilder character slots take enormous swings and there’s a lot of crazy shit that happens, there’s something so fun about a straight man. Because sometimes the crazy shit doesn’t work unless there’s someone immediately grounding it.

It’s kind of hard for me too. This last week we did a sketch set at a leadership summit. Everyone was really crazy. Bowen [Yang] beams into the room as this scary doctor character that he’s played before a couple of times, and then beams out. My character was supposed to be reacting to everyone around me being crazy. Just seeing the special effect of Bowen beaming into the room—I didn’t realize that I was on camera for this—you can see me watching the cool special effect, and I’m literally going, Whoa. Like, I’ve been playing a straight man who’s amused by my own job.

It’s pretty far from how you were used at the beginning.

Yeah, it stretched me in ways I didn’t know. I mean, it is like acting. A lot of times with SNL it’s just joke delivery—you have to say this in the exact right way that the writer needs you to say it, in service of the whole rest of the piece.

Another interesting arc that I’ve had over the season is I’ve done a bunch of Updates that have come about really last-minute, or that have been written off writing schedule, or thrown into writing characters that weren’t my own original idea. So I’ve been flexing a lot of writing muscles too, which is new for me. They were like, “Can you play the squirrel?” Then I’m like, “All right, I have to play a squirrel. How can I write this in a way that’s fun for me, that’s also still the squirrel?”

How much desire did you have to expand into this stuff yourself? You came onto the show strong, but rooted firmly in your specific brand of humor.

I came into the show as if everyone was like, “She’s crazy,” and I did all this crazy stuff. It’s like, oh, crazy doesn’t go that long of a way. The show is an hour and a half. It can’t be crazy the whole time. So the show has supported me to move in places that make me understand comedy better. Even in my own stand-up, my show is an hour and a half. It’s playing with texture and pacing and bigness and smallness, and this show has taught me just how it works. You can’t be screaming the whole time, which is something I wouldn’t have learned from the show.

Anytime they put me in a blond wig and a normal dress, still four years in, everybody’s like, “Who’s that woman?” Sometimes people just write me into sketches because they think it’ll be funny that I’m wearing a blond wig or something. Literally, Quinta [Brunson], who hosted last week—we’ve known each other a long time. We did that “Forever 31” sketch, and I was in a blond wig, and I sat down next to her and she thought I was just a woman. She was like, “Hey.”

And how do you feel about that?

Every day is drag. I don’t know how to say this in a way that isn’t hokey, but as a “woman in Hollywood,” you sometimes feel like [you have] a limited lane or version for yourself. The show has made me realize that that’s not true at all. I didn’t know that I had range before. I only saw myself as some clown, or wearing a shirt with clowns on it.

One thing you’ve done since the beginning is mercilessly roast Colin Jost on Weekend Update. How do you keep that fresh?

If I didn’t find it fun, I wouldn’t keep doing it. At first it started out as just me, and then we kept it fresh by evolving and having it be different characters. That was how I was able to train myself to play characters too, because sketch comedy was so new to me. It was my way into being like, “Oh, I can play this crazy meditation guru.” I played Colin’s son, I played Nosferatu, but I had a basis or comfort level with, “I know I can always go back to calling Colin a racist pedophile.” He sits there laughing the whole time.

A year ago, I had my own news segment with a bunch of graphics and stuff, and then this year I experimented with doing current-events stuff. I did a character that was his financial adviser freaking out about the stock market crash. It makes everything that’s crazy more grounded, because I’m interacting with him. So if I can keep using roasting Colin as a base to springboard into insanity in fresh new ways, why not?

What do you remember about how this tradition with him started?

Well, it was all Colin’s fault. When I first joined the show, I had written a bunch of things down for a table read—I just didn’t know about sketch comedy, and so he told me, “You should come on Weekend Update as yourself.” At first I was like, “Oh, that’s so presumptuous.” I didn’t know you can just go on TV as yourself. It felt even funnier—after him being so kind, like, “Hey, I want to give you an opportunity to try being on the show for once”—to repay him by just making fun of him for living in the Hamptons. I called him a groomer or something. But the only reason it’s fun is because he is sitting there laughing.

You seem so comfortable now on the Update desk. Would you ever think about doing it more firmly as a host?

Of course, I would love to. Are you kidding me?

Would you have thought that four years ago?

No. I would never have seen two people sitting at a desk in suits and been like, Oh, I should probably do that. I’m obsessed with Norm Macdonald, but that’s the thing, they’re all so effing good at jokes. To even think for one second, I can do what Norm Macdonald did—what am I, insane?”

But you sound more comfortable with the idea now.

It looks so fun. I’ll do anything that’s fun.

What felt most meaningful to you about being a part of the SNL50 special?

I just assumed I wouldn’t really be in it. We’re like, “Oh, it’s the 50th anniversary. It’s going to be every famous comedian from all time in this.” I assumed I would come in for one second and be like, “Here’s your water, ma’am.” So the fact that I got to do even more than “Here’s your water, ma’am”? Awesome. It was just crazy. Paul McCartney was there. I was like, “Yo.” This is a tough job. And as you’ve seen by this interview, you’re tired, sleep-deprived, and you’re feeling insane. It was a good touch-down reminder that it is worth it, because I got to meet Paul McCartney. I went up to him and I was like, “I have your hair from the Wings era. And I was the Temporary Secretary in the shower this morning.” And he was like, “All right. Cool, cool.”

You mentioned playing Nosferatu. Was that the most intense makeup job of this past season?

I think so. As it always does with crazy makeup and stuff, by the time it hits air, you’re probably wearing 50% less than you did at run-through. I wanted this crazy Nosferatu nose and crazy eyebrows, but Lorne’s big note is always, “Well, we can’t see your face. You could be literally any single person on the planet up there.” I did a Matt Gaetz thing where Louie [Zakarian], the special effects makeup department head who’s a genius, built a forehead that not only gave me a fivehead, but also pulled and squashed my eyebrows into a demonic shape, because I really wanted the evil Lord Licorice eyebrows.

I knew going in that Nosferatu would be funny, but I didn’t know how funny the fingers were going to be until I found out they wiggled. I just knew I was going to have long fingers. So then we watch it back and we see there’s all this opportunity with fingers moving [in a] funny [way]. Or I didn’t know with Matt Gaetz that my whole thing with the character would just be spiking the camera and looking like a purple demon emoji until I saw it. Even with the squirrel, I knew I was going to be tweaking out like a squirrel with a tiny peanut brain—but I didn’t realize that I would have little fingernails that make funny sounds on the desk. All these little choices that different artists make in the production help inform the character.

When Lorne says, “But we can’t see your face,” what do you say back?

I get it, I do. But I just love crazy makeup. He’s right, because then it ends up being my face in a Nosferatu giant bald cap and crazy big ears, which visually comes out funnier—because you just see this tiny little face at the bottom. But I just love fucking up my face. I love taking my eyes out, putting googly eyes in there. Lorne is like, “You can do these characters without all the bells and whistles,” which has been my lifelong problem as a maximalist. Where it’s like, “I didn’t know the Matt Gaetz character until I had the eyebrows.” And he’s trying to push me in the direction of, “Okay, but what if you did these characters without all the fucking $5,000 makeup?”

What still feels like uncharted territory for you?

It’s going to sound crazy, but sketches are really hard. You’re only given limited time. Lots of pressure. There’s a lot of mouths to feed. When you write something, you have to take care of yourself, but you’re also writing for a celebrity to host that week. I feel like I still haven’t cracked writing the perfect character-driven sketch that satisfies both me and a host’s creative desire.

I know I can take care of myself on Update in any shape. That’s me and my castmates. I know me and my castmates. But I’m still figuring out, “How do I write something for me and a celebrity that I don’t know?” They call them two-hander sketches where it’s the host and the person matching. I’m trying to say this in a way that doesn’t sound pathetic. It’s like, Heidi [Gardner] is so fucking good at writing a character. She and the host in this cool character thing, they’re being hilarious—every week she’s at table read with these amazing sketches. Or like Ego [Nwodim] and Quinta with the gorilla. I aspire to just do something like that. That sounds insane to say.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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